Adjustments and Stuff

I am in the process of changing the layout of the blogs. Instead of 2 sidebars, there will be just one.

I have made the page wider, and the posts will be more-so on the left side of the blog.

The blog lists, or links to all Faith of the Fathers blogs and my favorite Catholic blogs can be found on the right hand sidebar by scrolling down the page.

Also, new is an Amazon store called "Faith of the Fathers Catholic Books and More", which can be accessed by clicking the name that is just below the header (description box) near the top of the page. There will be books, Bibles, DVD’s and more for sale, that re;ate to the different areas of the blogs. They include Catholic Mass, Catholic Saints, Fathers of the Church, and more.

I have also added a home page for the blogs, and in it's main (and only) post is a list of all the most recent blog posts. Each has a small "snippet" from the blog post. You can click the title of the snippet, and it will take you to the full post.

I hope this gives the blogs a cleaner look, and is better for all the readers and followers of Faith of the Fathers.

Just To Let You Know

I have been busy making a few needed changes on the Faith of the Fathers blogs.

Primarily the changes are to both of the sidebars of all the blogs. No longer will the first things a visitor sees be the advertisments and promotions on these blogs. They are still there, just located at the bottom of each sidebar. That way it's not so "in your face" with those items anymore. They have never been of the primary importance to these blogs in the first place.

On top of the left sidebar of each blog is a link to the Welcome page, and a link to our Privacy Policy. I instituted a Privacy Policy as the Google Ads program required one, and so I complied. Below that are some links to some important sites, such as Priests for Life, and 2 Catholic Charitable organizations.

As you scroll on down the left sidebar I have added an area called "Faith of the Fathers Blogs Recent Posts". These link to the most popular Faith of the Fathers blogs, and give the title of the most recent post on each blog. The most recently updated blog will be listed first in that section. Just below that is "More Faith of the Fathers Blogs" with text links to all of our blogs, and then below that are links to (in my opinion) "Some Great Catholic Blogs".

On the right hand sidebar, I kept the language translation tool, BabelFish at the top of the sidebar, with the profile block just below that. There now is a section called "My Blog List" which is a list of the blogs I visit most often. The blogs are listed alphabetically. Below that is a section called "Some Great Catholic Sites" that all Catholics might be interested in.

Speaking of sites, there are two that I want to call your attention to. The first actually only appears on two of the blogs, "Favorite Prayers and Scripture" and "Prayer Requests". The site linked to there is called "Virtual Rosary". Virtual Rosary calls itself "The Original Free Multimedia Rosary and Prayer Network". The program there is free, and it is a big help to anyone wanting to learn to pray the rosary . It also will give you the option of a daily reminder to pray the rosary on the startup of your computer. There are different modules you can add (also free) that you can use such as Saint Louis de Montfort Meditations, a scriptural rosary from Workers of Our Lady of Moint Carmel among others, and modules available for different languages such as Spanish, Chinese, German and Hungarian.

The second site I want to direct your attention to, especially the women readers of these blogs, is a site called "Women for Faith and Family". After all the talk (once again) of the ordination of women, it is wonderful  to find a site for orthodox Catholic women who follow the teachings, Traditions and the Magisterium of the Catholic Church, and who are loyal to the Pope. Their about page says in part:

• To assist orthodox Catholic women in their effort to provide witness to their faith, both to their families and to the world.
• To aid women in their efforts to deepen their understanding of the Catholic Faith.
• To aid faithful Catholic women in their desire for fellowship with others who share their faith and commitment.
• To serve as a channel through which questions from Catholic women seeking guidance or information can be directed.

I hope these changes are helpful, and I hope you do visit all the sites and blogs that we link to on Faith of the Fathers blogs.

About Commenting On All 24 of Faith of the Fathers Blogs

Regular readers of these blogs, may recall that we recently implemented some changes in the layout of these blogs, and that we also started using a new comments managing system from Disqus.

We are very pleased with the disqus system, but we are forced to make a change in the way we utilize it. There have been some attempts by some individuals to post comments that have included profanity, obscene jokes, and links to "questionable" sites. We were fortunate enough to catch these comments before they made it to the posts they were attached to. The individuals leaving these comments must think it funny. We don't.

There have also been some recent comments from folks who just couldn't resist the "opportunity" to attack and condemn the Catholic Church, and Catholics in general. There was one individual tonight who had left 2 comments of condemnation that was 14 long paragraphs in the first, followed by 2 paragraphs in the second. They were deleted for the following reasons:

  1. They were far too long for a comment
  2. The purpose of these blogs is to share our faith and to encourage all Christians.
  3. We are not here to engage in debate over our faith.
  4. We do not, and will not go to blogs of any other belief system and attack or condemn them

We suggest you begin your own blog and share what your faith is if you are so inclined to write such long diatribes.

Now for those who left comments on our blogs in the past, you may have noticed that your comments have disappeared. When we switched over to disqus, the former comments management system we used was so poorly designed, that it failed to export over 95% of the comments that existed at the time, and the comments were lost. So, in other words, due to one of those wonderful internet and computer glitches that we are all far too familiar with, they are gone, and we did not delete them. We would love it in fact if they were still here.

Now, to get on with what changes are now in place for all future commenting on these blogs. All comments will now be moderated. If you make a comment, don't get upset when you don't see it right away. The comment will come to us for approval before it will be published. It may take us one to two days to get them approved, as we do have to work our public job like everyone else. So please, we ask you for your patience and indulgence. 

This will also make it a bit more secure for our readers to read the comments here, as no one will be able to place any comments with links, until those links have been checked for safety and appropriate content. You also won't have to worry about your children reading an inappropriate comment, clicking an uunsuitable link, etc.

The only way one can comment without moderation, is if they and their blog or site are registered with disqus. Rest assured, if we get any comments from registered users that are inappropriate, confrontational, abusive, etc., we can then moderate all comments, and will do so if it becomes necessary.

Finished (for now)

Well, 6 days and eighteen blogs later, I finally finished switching over the templates for the "Faith of the Fathers" blogs. Including the "Kid's Corner" blogs in the change, a total of 24 blogs were switched over.

I never got any input pro or con regarding the change, and maybe most people just didn't notice. The background color is the same, it is just a three column template now as opposed to the two column standard available from Blogger.

As I stated in my previous post, I switched the comments management to disqus, and I also added another language translation tool, Google Translate. The Google Translate gives more language options for those visitors who have a primary language other than english. You can get Google Translate for all languages or you can choose what languages you want available for your blog or website.

Also, please click on the Hunger Site whenever you get the opportunity to do so. When you get to their site click the big yellow button. Each click on that button results in their sponsors donating 1.1 cups of food for each click. The graphic link for their site is included on each of our blog pages, and there is a text link at the footer of each post on our feeds.

I also implemented a custom google search in the sidebar for each blog page. The searches are Catholic related, and should help you do a search without having to open a new tab or window.

I hope you like the "different" look.

Your brother in Christ,

Steve